The VIP Room
by Higuchimon
Summary: [one-shot, Diversity Challenge, Shou & Saiou] Shou always gets a good seat to watch his brother duel. He didn't expect to have company during one of Ryou's rematches against Edo Phoenix.


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.  
**Fandom:** Yu-Gi-Oh GX  
**Title:** The VIP Room  
**Characters:** Shou, Saiou  
**Word Count:** 1,500||**Status:** One-shot  
**Genre:** Friendship||**Rated:** G  
**Challenge:** Diversity Challenge: section C, #14: write a fic that is K-rated.  
**Summary:** [one-shot, Diversity Challenge, Shou & Saiou] Shou always gets a good seat to watch his brother duel. He didn't expect to have company during one of Ryou's rematches against Edo Phoenix.

* * *

"This way, sir."

Shou glanced toward the door of the VIP observation room at the attendant's voice. It wouldn't be the first time he'd shared such a room with someone important to his brother's opponent, but never when Ryou fought Edo Phoenix. He wondered who it would be; Edo didn't have any living family and the only other person he was genuinely close to seemed to be Ryou, who would definitely _not_ be watching his own duel!

When the tall figure stepped into the room, Shou could've smacked himself. Who else would be here to watch Edo duel but Saiou Takuma?

His heart thudded at being so close to Saiou. This hadn't happened for _years_. The last time he'd been this close had been…right after that whole mess with the Society of Light back in school. He'd never really _talked_ to Saiou at all then. He'd been too busy being happy that Juudai had once again saved the world.

From Saiou. Or the thing that had infested Saiou.

This could get very awkward.

Saiou glanced around the room, his attention lighting on Shou. Shou tensed up, wondering if he should say anything, but Saiou only nodded politely and moved over to the chair waiting for him.

"Can I get you anything, sirs?" The attendant stood in between them, oblivious to Shou's mental dilemma.

Shou swallowed for a moment. He hadn't really needed anything, until now. "A drink would be nice. Some hot tea."

"Likewise," Saiou said. The attendant hurried out at once. Shou almost wished that he'd stayed, but knew that wasn't possible. Instead, he settled himself into his own chair again, feet resting on the footstool, wishing that he'd grown more than the two or three inches he had since high school. It wasn't fair that Saiou was almost as freakishly tall as his brother!

Saiou seemed as oblivious to Shou's mental growling as the attendant. He simply leaned back and watched the spectators who didn't get to watch from the air conditioned comfort of their observation room scurry around looking for their seats. Shou snatched little peeks at him, wondering what was going on behind those quiet lavender eyes.

_He looks better than he did when I saw him that time._ Shou vaguely recalled that Saiou had also been at the graduation dance, but he'd been so busy being startled he'd graduated at all that he hadn't paid that much attention to him. Saiou had looked better then, somewhat, but now he looked…healthy. As if he'd been healthy for a long time.

The attendant returned with two cups of hot tea, and s tray of the standard snacks provided for those honored with a seat in the VIP area. Shou seldom had much of an appetite before a duel, whether it was his or someone else's, but now he grabbed a breadstick and started to nibble on it, wanting to have some kind of reasonable excuse for why he wasn't talking to the other.

_How much longer?_ He glanced quickly at the clock; they had another five minutes. He could imagine Ryou and Edo in their respective dressing rooms, sorting through their decks for the final time and planning their opening strategies. They'd fought a dozen times since Ryou's return to the Pro Leagues and they knew each other very well now. This would not be an easy duel.

"Who do you think will win?" Saiou's question caught Shou by surprise and he almost choked on his breadstick.

"Uh…wouldn't you know better than I would?" Shou wondered, taking a quick sip of his tea after he spoke.

Saiou turned toward him, the corner of his mouth quirked upward. "Not anymore. It's been years since I could see what was to come."

Shou almost hit himself. He'd put almost everything out of the encounter with Saiou out of his mind for the last several years, but still, he didn't have to be such an idiot about this. "Oh, yeah. That's right." He could at least sound like he knew what day of the week it was. Saiou wasn't going to hurt him. They were just there to watch a duel together.

He scrambled around for something intelligent to say. "Edo won their last duel, so I think my brother might have a better chance for this one." That was frequently how their duels happened, each of them taking turns as the victor. Neither of them had won two duels in a row against each other, ever.

"It may well be," Saiou agreed, glancing back down to the arena. Moments slipped away, drawing ever closer to the duel beginning. Shou could hear the cries of the spectators as the anticipation for the battle grew. "They've both grown very much from their first duel against one another."

Shou held back a flinch. Even though it had been years earlier, and everything had come out all right from it in the end – even if the end had taken years -, he still never forgot that the duel that started Ryou ultimately on the path to Hell Kaiser had been fought against Edo. And that Saiou had been Edo's manager at the time.

The question fell out of his mouth before he could stop himself. "Did you know? Then, I mean? What would happen to my brother?"

Saiou took another sip of his tea, eyes distant and thoughtful. "No. The fate of others never concerned me much in those days."

It should've hurt. On some level it did hurt, to think that someone could've cared so little about others. But Shou wasn't the sixteen year old who'd seen his brother spiral into a world of pain and disrespect, not anymore. He took up another breadstick and hoped that Saiou had learned better since then.

Out there, the two duelists approached one another on the playing field, trading the opening barbs with one another. There was a special sort of air to their conversation, one that spoke of long-time friendship and the sort of mutual respect that neither of them gave casually. That was the greatest change in Ryou since those days, Shou decided, that he gave respect to those who truly earned it from him. Edo had most certainly earned it.

Saiou's lips turned upward as the first hands were drawn and the two duelists began to feel one another out. "He duels with more joy these days."

"Which one?" Shou couldn't help but ask, a hint of amusement filtering through.

"Honestly? Both of them." Saiou leaned forward to get a better look as Edo took his turn.

Shou had to agree; the television screens inside the booth here showed the two duelists in greater detail than could be seen with the naked eye, and both of them fought with the kind of attitude that could only be seen between two people genuinely enjoying themselves. He'd seen it before, but never quite so strongly as now.

"I suspect they will want to go out for dinner afterward," Saiou said, a thoughtful tilt to his head. "They usually do."

Shou nodded; he'd seen that before as well. He didn't always go with Ryou, but he knew it happened. "I bet I know where they'll be going. There's this little place across town where my brother always goes after he's won a duel."

"You could be right." Saiou's lips thinned for a moment in a smile of satisfaction as D-Hero Double Guy scored two hits on Ryou, knocking him down to a thousand life points. "I think I might go with them, if invited."

"I think I might too," Shou said, making the decision in a moment. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that talking to Saiou wasn't all that bad. He wanted to keep doing it. They'd barely skimmed the surface of everything they could talk about. He wondered what, if anything, Saiou knew about Dark World and what happened there, and if he'd ever visited any of those other worlds. Edo had, once or twice, since their return, he knew. But he'd never heard about Saiou going there.

He leaned forward himself, eyes now firmly on his brother, as Ryou rallied his forces, and made a blazing comeback, scorching through Edo's defenses and slamming the silver-haired duelist to the far side of the arena, the last of his life points draining away. Forgetting that he was supposed to be a mature adult right now, he leaped to his feet and cheered in absolute joy.

Saiou applauded politely as Edo rose to his feet and congratulated Ryou, murmuring something under his breath that Shou couldn't catch, but only knew had been said by the shape of his lips. He'd ask later, Shou decided. He glanced at Saiou.

"Let's go talk to them?"

"I think we should let them rest first," Saiou said, and Shou nodded.

He could hardly wait to congratulate his brother, and spend a little more time with his unexpected new friend. He wondered if Saiou still dueled.

**The End**


End file.
